


And the waves washed up on the endless shore

by galwednesday



Series: Tumblr ficlets 2018 [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Desert Island, Let Bucky Retire 2018, Love Confessions, M/M, but desert island seems to be the trope name, or more accurately: tropical island
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 18:07:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15467046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galwednesday/pseuds/galwednesday
Summary: They spend the first few weeks mapping out the island. It’s not that big, they could walk the whole perimeter in a day, but there’s a difference between crossing terrain on your way to somewhere else and taking note of every fresh water source and edible plant and snake pit that you find. It’s something out of someone else’s childhood, spending all day in the same little patch of trees, turning over logs to see what’s under them.





	And the waves washed up on the endless shore

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous prompted: "I have a prompt! Post WS, Stucky stuck on an island (crash landing?) and they finally admit their feelings while waiting to be rescued"

They spend the first few weeks mapping out the island. It’s not that big, they could walk the whole perimeter in a day, but there’s a difference between crossing terrain on your way to somewhere else and taking note of every fresh water source and edible plant and snake pit that you find. It’s something out of someone else’s childhood, spending all day in the same little patch of trees, turning over logs to see what’s under them.

Bucky takes it better than Steve. They’ve both been marooned in time and space before, but this is only Steve’s second time. Bucky’s old hat at it by now. This island in whatever plane of reality the bullshit AIM machine catapulted them into when it exploded has tidal pools full of quick-darting fish and a spring in the mountains that burbles fresh water and broad leaves to keep them up off the sand when they sleep on the beach at night. He’s woken up in much worse situations. 

Steve spends their first two weeks scouting, the next three weeks making plans for rescue or escape, and the week after that trying to pick fights. Bucky waits him out, and he settles eventually, not accepting their fate but understanding that he can’t do much to alter it just then. Maybe Wanda or Stark or their Wakandan allies will find them; maybe they won’t. Bucky isn’t going to waste energy planning for the best case scenario.

Their seventh week is quiet, and so is the eighth, and the ninth, and every week after that. Steve marks off each day by scoring a new line in the bark of the biggest tree near the beach, or Bucky wouldn’t know how many weeks had passed. Every day is mostly the same. The weather barely changes, thin clouds doing little to obscure the sun. It rains, once.

They share the same nest of driftwood and leaves without bothering to discuss alternatives. They have more space on the island than they’ve ever shared before, even counting their suite in the Tower, where they had their own bedrooms and two guest rooms besides that. Bucky’s already using the past tense when he thinks of their old life, but only in his own head. Steve has relaxed enough to start treating this like unexpected leave. To Bucky’s thinking, this is retirement, and it’s not so bad. They scale thin-trunked trees to get at big pulpy fruit pods, sear salty-fleshed fish over driftwood fires, hollow out the fruit pod hulls to carry water back from the spring. Bucky gets a tan. Steve burns, peels, and burns all over again until Bucky invents games they can play in the shade while the sun is at its highest.

“Out of all the Commandos, who smelled the worst?”

“Dernier,” Steve says, without having to think about it. They’re lying on the rocks by the spring and dangling their feet in the water. They’ve been playing the question game long enough for the air to haze over, steam building up under the canopy of leaves, and the only cold parts of Bucky’s body are the toes he has tucked into the stream. “He wasn’t any dirtier than the rest of us, but he was always messing with chemicals and gunpowder. Half the time he smelled like lye. If you were in a restaurant right now, what would you order?”

“Lasagna.” Most of Steve’s questions are about the future, some theoretical time when they get off the island and back home. Most of Bucky’s questions are about their shared past, filling in the gaps with things Steve saw or read about later. He tries not to ask about details of the missions Hydra sent him on, even though Steve knows more about those years than Bucky does. Steve will answer, he always answers any question Bucky asks, but then he’ll go quiet until Bucky does something unnecessarily athletic like dunk him in the ocean a few times. Bucky doesn’t feel like moving that much right now. “Were we ever a thing?”

“A thing like what?”

“You know.” Bucky rolls his head to look at Steve, moves his eyebrows like Stark had when he asked Bucky the same question a month before they both landed on the island. “A _thing_.”

Steve swallows before he answers, a tiny pause, his throat working silently. “No. What’s the last book you read?”

“That biography of Hamilton you left on the living room table. I got halfway through it. Did you ever want us to be?”

Steve always answers any question Bucky asks. Bucky’s taking advantage of that, he knows, but he’s been avoiding asking these two questions for almost a year. He’s been avoiding giving his own answer for even longer, if his patchy memories of Steve are anything to go by. The old Bucky had known every dent on Steve’s bony knuckles, the precise angle of his clenched jaw before he hit someone, the length and texture of the hair that was always flopping over his forehead. The clarity of those memories gave the old Bucky’s secret away long before Bucky understood what they meant.

It doesn’t seem worth running from anymore. Whatever the fallout is, they’ll weather it. The island is peaceful enough to smooth over any turmoil they can produce, and they have plenty of time to work things through. Bucky doesn’t want to spend another seventy years sleeping beside Steve without knowing if he’s allowed to touch.

Steve closes his eyes, his forehead creasing in thought or in pain, but his voice is calm when he says, “Yeah, Bucky. I always wanted you.”

“He wanted you, too,” Bucky says, voice soft like he’s breaking bad news, because Steve still looks like something hurts. “Me, I mean. Before the war. And during.”

Steve opens his eyes. Bucky waits. It’s Steve’s turn for a question.

“What do _you_ want?” Steve asks. Bucky smiles, and Steve breathes out, loud and shaky with relief, when Bucky curls in close to show him.

**Author's Note:**

> (probably they get rescued at some point but not until after they've had a good long honeymoon period, BECAUSE I SAID SO)


End file.
